Jambot Music Improvisation Robot

"It is common for a band or solo musician to have a computer-based backing track or use looping pedals, but these kinds of technology are not very flexible or responsive to what's happening on stage," Mr Toby Gifford, PhD researcher from QUT's Faculty of Creative Industries, said.

"Jambot is a musical robot, but it's not made of metal and it doesn't blow smoke.

"It is a piece of computer software that could play along to a soloist, providing a backing track, or improvising a conga drum solo over recorded music being played by a DJ, for example.

"It could also allow a live band to have a fuller sound when they can't have as many band members as they would like on stage."

Fans of sf classic 2001: A Space Odyssey recall the musical stylings of the HAL 9000 computer. Take a look at HAL singing "Daisy, Daisy" from the end of the movie (skip to 5:15 for the song).

(HAL 9000 sings "Daisy, Daisy")

Update 09-Jan-2010:
Read about the robot pianist from Herbert Goldstone's beautiful 1953 story Virtuoso, which describes what a humanoid robot can do once the correlation between dots on sheet music and the levers of a piano are properly explained. End update.